The Legend of Noma
by Havock612
Summary: The stories of a ghost in the Klavan mansion are investigated by Havock, a young dark jedi from Lopen.


_[Written for my character 'Havock' from . Nothing created by Lucas belongs to me.]_

**The Legend of Noma**

Wet, cold, damp. Was it raining? She couldn't tell anymore. The freezing sweat that dripped from her pours had soaked her hair and clothes as if she were walking in a rain storm.

But she wasn't walking, she was running.

The running was causing a burning in her calves and thighs. It was enough to make her no longer care about the weather or her appearance for that matter.

Noma Klavan had managed an above middle class life in her fifty some odd years. She married a good, but somewhat inattentive, man named Doctor Roget Klavan. Roget was a scientist, and he was brilliant. His expertise lied in invention, and his innovations gave way to new technological advances in droid production and mental mapping. It was an odd combination, but Roget did the majority of his medical research in neurology. Artificial intelligence was more of a hobby. He enjoyed spending time in his laboratory tinkering with his droid trying to apply his neurological research to the machine's intelligence.

A week ago her life was changed forever.

Now, her husband was dead, a victim to a degeneration disease that claimed his body but could never touch his mind. Noma was just a woman running in the damp night air through the woods surrounding Torrance, the capital city of Hadabbanon. She was probably going to die and she only barely knew why.

A branch, invisible in the darkness, slapped Noma's face causing a gash and warm blood to mix with the sweat. Tears involuntarily fell as her heart pounded in her chest. Her reflexes screamed to use her hands to stop the blood, yet she knew she couldn't, not without dropping the box clutched in them.

The box was yet another unanswered question in Noma's mind. A component to some device her late husband spent his last moments dithering over rather than resting, rather than doing anything the doctors ever told him to do. She was looking at it as she finally got the will to go through Roget's never-ending drawings and unfinished projects in the basement lab of their large home in Torrance.

Noma couldn't guess what it would do, only that as soon as her small hand closed around the object the hot breathing on her neck started. She tried to turn and before her eyes could behold the terrible image behind her, the screeching growl emitted by the creature sent her muscles flying as fast as they could to move her legs, sprinting towards the exit.

She never looked back, yet she knew it was still there. The sound of tree's being abused by a large body bashing into them at a startling pace, the vibrations as over-sized feet slammed into the foliage on the forest floor. All the signs whispered in her brain to keep running, don't stop, don't look back, the nightmare is upon you.

It slashed at her, and she heard herself scream before she even knew the sound had left her lips. The fabric that covered her back ripped against the powerful claws that were disappointed at the lack of flesh under the sharp nails.

The target of her flight was in her sights. Illuminated through the trees she could only barely make out the small cave she used to play with her sisters at as children. Her body dived for the alcove landing on broken branches and rocks bruising her petite body. She grunted with effort as she squirmed towards her target. A sering pain stabbed at Noma from her thigh as the sword-like fingers dug into the soft skin and pulled her back towards it. Now she had a purpose, she was at her goal, and even if she was ripped in half she would complete her task.

Noma didn't make a sound she clamped her teeth down on her lip, drawing a small measure of blood. The metallic taste didn't dissuade her, she continued to shift and scoot up to the small cave. A full grown person couldn't even stand in the opening, and in the light anyone could see that it was less than a meter deep. With her last bit of effort she tossed the box and let her head fall in exhausted triumph to the forest floor.

* * *

><p><strong><em>50 years later<em>**

"Ayme this is an important mission for the order." Aeos stood a meter away with her arms crossed in her brown robes.

Dark Jedi Knight Ayme Katash leaned over the stone rail that overlooked the Lopen landscape. She scanned through the documents on her datapad.

"You think this missing object is a artifact, but in honesty you have no clue what it was."

Fifty years ago a man died, and he left a wake of unanswered questions. He was a scientist or an inventor even that wasn't clear anymore. His life's work was some device that he only wrote notes on in code and nobody alive had ever seen. They were sending her on a mission to chase the ghost of a legend.

"It could be a holocron."

Ayme nodded and turned to look at her sister. "Yes, an ancient holocron with Klavan's favorite recipes, or maybe his last shopping list. And just to clarify, nobody knows what Klavan did just that he had something of value in the end."

"Ayme."

"Look Zasati, I get it. I'm pretty new around here, so I get the crap jobs. I'll go and run the order's errand." Ayme rolled her eyes and started for the citadel.

"Ayme, Klavan was dabbling in artificial intelligence too. We need you to go because you know the most about machinery, you understand it on a level that Klavan could only dream of. So drop the attitude and change out of that robe." She turned on her heel and walked past her younger sister. "Oh and don't forget your lightsaber."

* * *

><p><strong><em>Torrance Spaceport: Hadabbanon<em> **

"Welcome, welcome, welcome." A man, which Havock assumed and really hoped was the mayor came towards her. She stiffened instantly as his arms raised and she thought for sure he was going to hug her. Luckily she was able to intercept one of the arms and forced him into a hearty hand shake.

"I'm Major Katash. I was instructed to meet Mayor Bryors, which I assume is you?" Her eyes flashed to her arm which was still in a death grip from the overdressed man. The temperature had to be in the upper numbers based on the humidity and Bryors was in a full suit and coat looking like he was happy as can be to soaked in sweat.

"Yes, I am Mayor Bryors Patterson of Torrance city. Your superiors told you about our security issues I take it?" Thankfully he finally released her arm and they started walking towards the main terminal.

"I was briefed on the basic situation. You need someone to investigate a strange signal coming from one of your abandoned buildings. The signal has a trace signature that led you to the Vast Empire." Ayme rambled through her cover story for the mission. One good thing about still being active in the army was high security clearances and believable cover stories. She was able to find a two year old request by Mayor Patterson to investigate a signal and used that to her advantage. "Do you have the coordinates of the signal?"

Bryors laughed. "You military types always sound so official, its adorable." He bumped into Havock making her desperately want to reach for her pistol but she stopped herself and put on a fake smirk, or as much of one as she could muster. "The signal is coming from an old mansion, it used to be owned by the Klavan family."

Havock nodded, this wasn't news to her, just convenience.

"Personally I'm more interested in what's happening in the woods." Bryors nodded towards the tree-line just outside of town.

"The woods?" Havock wanted to kick herself immediately for letting her curiosity and the general distraction her mind get to her. She wanted to get away from the egotistical man as fast as possible. Ayme was better off on her own or with machines during these missions, her mouth tended to get her into trouble.

"Its not a threat I've encountered personally. But we all know the stories." He pointed a chubby finger to a line of trees that started what looked like a very thick forest to the west of town. "Something evil lives in those trees."

Ayme raised her eyebrow from behind the seemingly serious man and smirked at his dramatic choice of words. "Evil?"

"Yes evil. The stories vary wildly so I can't really be more specific. The one thing every child in Torrance knows is after dark there are two places you do not go. The old Klavan Mansion and Noma's Forest." Havock clenched her jaw to keep from hurting the man next to her. She looked away towards the picturesque forest and smiled at the simplicity of small communities and their silly legends.

"Well Mayor Bryors, I will be investigating around the town. My objective is to find the signal, determine who set it up and why. It was my understanding I have your permission to enter any establishment or home I need to?" He nodded an affirmative response. "Good. I will do my best to be out of your hair in the next day or two."

"One request?"

Havock sighed as quietly as she could. "Yes sir."

"If you do go into the forest, I would like to come. I want to see the monster that got me elected to several terms for myself. Remember a vote for Bryors is a vote for safety." He winked and strutted off towards city hall leaving Havock standing dumbfounded in the street.

"He needs more protection, I can't imagine anyone who [i]wouldn't[/i] want to kill him." She muttered to herself.

* * *

><p>Cold. It was impossible to explain with logic, but the air suddenly felt colder as she entered the gate to the mansion's grounds. The building loomed before the woman like a statue, frozen in time as a capsule of its owners last days. Only the weeds and weather had not been as kind as they could have on the structure. Overgrowth climbed up the walls and covered the once ornate windows. Shutters that used to protect the owners from harm in storms, creaked and whined to their current lack of purpose. The paint had long faded, its color only barely visible in the chips that littered the ground like pedals from a dead flower.<p>

Havock touched the door handle that surely once shined its brass smile at its owners comings and goings, now it looked brown and dull under her gloved fingers. Pieces of wood and paint snowed down upon her as the door opened with a weak scream, as if to warn would be trespassers of the houses evil intentions. Havock didn't care for ghost stories or legends though. The stories about this place were just stories, that was evident by the fact that it was transmitting a very current and modern signal from within. That meant that someone tangible and real was making a transmitter work, not some fifty year old spirit that had nothing better to do.

The interior of the house looked like a holo, frozen in time. The only thing that indicated the passage of time was the layer of dust covering every object in the room. Her foot prints marked her steps as she passed the threshold and moved into the foyer.

Two lights six centimeters apart flashed on in the shadows before her. A whirling sound indicated something mechanical was powering up. The lights came towards her with a metal sequel. Without a thought she raised her pistol and lined up a shot between the two lights. With one bolt the encounter was over.

The droid looked like a service model, probably some ancient butler that was running on reserve power for all these years. From the state of things he was definitely not a cleaning droid. She touched its cold metal skin and closed her eyes. Her mind touched the gears and servos, all of which reported back nothing but the cold loneliness of an abandoned piece of machinery.

The datapad in her pack beeped. She had been running an ambient scan to locate the strange readings coming from the mansion. The readings she was getting were all over the place. It wasn't possible to even pinpoint if the signal was coming from the upper or lower floors.

She nodded to herself and thought about what could cause such interference as her eyes continuously swept the stairs and alcoves just past the atrium of the mansion. She could get the longitude for the signal, it was the latitude she would have to use leg work to sort out.

Havock's eyes started to fix on the crooked paintings and half fallen tapestries adorning the grand entry hall. These people had money, but were not made wealthy in their life time. This kind of wealth you're born with, you and probably all the ancestors you could name off the top of your head. Since nobody had inherited the mansion or its secrets, she concluded that they didn't have children or other family with children to pass it down to. Their only legacy appeared to be the legends their death's had spawned. Legends made for terrible housekeepers.

She looked past an statue silently guarding a large entryway into the barely lit room. The walls in the room were covered from top to bottom in books. Havock had to smirk, her Uncle was an avid book collector and bound flimsy books were not easy to come by. Almost every thing was held in some kind of digital form, and the reason was assaulting her senses as the woman stood at the threshold of the library. Cobwebs covered the spines of the faded bindings, distorting their colors. The smell of the decaying books made her nose itch.

"This is nice, other than the crazy scratches on the wall." She mused quietly to herself. Her fingers touched the deep gashes in the tapestry and wall behind. Jagged scars, which gave no answers only more questions.

There were four desks, one at each corner of the room. Two of them were smashed and their contents strewn on the floor. One was clear, but the last one had datapads and pages of flimsy neatly laid out. Havock approached the table and found drawings, which were annotated with the same strange code all the intel had throughout. The only sentence not in code said,_ check workshop._

Ayme nodded. "Workshop huh?"

* * *

><p>The stairs to the basement creaked below her feet as she descended into the darkness. Her right fist tightly held the lightsaber she built. A soft orange hue emitted from the hilt, and was the only light in the room. She breathed deeply letting the Force enhance her senses and allow her to see well enough in the darkness not to trip and fall down the stairs.<p>

She reached the bottom step and with no warning the lights flickered and flashed on. Ayme instinctively lit the blade and held it up in a defensive posture. Her eyes flicking to every corner looking for intruders.

Nothing. Silence.

For a basement it appeared to be the cleanest room in the mansion. This was obviously the most used room by the previous occupants, the Klavans. She knew so pitifully little about the people whose home she was investigating.

A dim light blinked beneath a piece of flimsy on a desk towards the center of the workshop. The jedi knight extinguished the blade and slid her foot forward out of a defensive posture. She waved her hand in pure annoyance at not being her own workshop on Lopen and watched the flimsy fly from the less than powerful burst of Force energy. Havock had watched several knights excel at moving things with their mind, for her it was typically a side effect of something else she was trying to accomplish. It happened of its own volition and she always felt that it was one aspect of her power she had the least amount of control over.

Her hand rested on an old book as she examined the antiquated technology in front of her. She touched the communication relay and felt the room change before her eyes. Ayme turned and saw a woman in a long dress running furiously from cabinet to counter top pushing things aside in a frenzy.

"Roget, why?" She muttered to herself as she ran towards Ayme, her hands slammed into the work table sending bits of metal and flimsy into the air. She looked the picture of frustration and pain then she seemed to hear something and her eyes slowly rolled upwards towards the ceiling. "They are coming. They are coming and you have dammed me my love."

Ayme raised an eyebrow and spoke aloud. "A bit dramatic aren't you."

Of course the woman couldn't hear her, this was just a shadow of the past and there was nothing Ayme could do to effect the images she was seeing. All she knew for sure was that this scene had something to do with the signal that had been transmitting for fifty years.

The woman, that must have been Noma Klavan based on Ayme's records, came to a decision. Her eyes glimmered as they resolved her soul to the fate she concluded would be hers. Noma smiled then, a sad remorseful smile. Her hand pushed a button Ayme hadn't noticed on the work table which caused an almost modern looking terminal screen and keypad to roll up out of the center of the desk. She typed quickly her eyes darting frequently towards the entrance. Her ability to fight the panic she was feeling was impressive.

She keyed in the final sequence of whatever she was doing and stepped back, satisfied with her efforts. The light started to blink and Noma reached out and touched it softly, she caressed the beacon lovingly as if she was pretending it was a lovers face.

"You are starting to worry me lady, even I'm not that excited by machines." Havock muttered.

"I'm sorry Roget." Noma sniffled to stop the tears from falling out of the corners of her blue eyes and turned to make a run for it from the faceless monster that caused all of this strife. Something stopped her. Havock frowned and stepped closer to the woman. She had knelt near the table leg and was looking curiously at a small box. It had intricate markings on each of the six sides, but no indication what so ever as to its purpose. Noma knew what it was though, the recognition and shock was obvious in her eyes. She laughed softly and allowed the tears to start falling. "I don't believe it, you did it. You crazy bastard you actually did it."

Something crashed and Noma rose to her feet with the cube. "You want me? No, heh, you want this. Lets see how fast you can run." Noma turned and ran, jumping on tables and made a giant leap over the guard rail onto the stairs.

Havock's eyes remained on the darkened doorway as the world around her changed slowly from having a sepia hue to the gray dust covered basement of the present. She blinked and looked down at the still blinking light.

"Why would you create a beacon which could only bring people here?" Roget was obviously a driven and private man. So why did his wife decide that this was the only way? What was supposed to be found? "Where did you go?"

A whisper entered her mind, she looked down at the book with the embroidered words 'Noma's Journal' inscribed on the nerfhide cover.

_I loved the woods, everyone thought I was strange they thought it was haunted. I just thought it was quiet and the most beautiful placed I'd ever seen._

Ayme smirked and ran up the stairs after the ghost. As she left the mansion a door in the basement creaked open. The monster turned its eyes up at the stairs and smiled.

* * *

><p>The woods became thick quickly upon entering. The light of mid-day only barely reached the forest floor through the layers of leafy branches. Ayme reached out with her senses and found nothing but the small life signatures of small animals. People shown just as bright but with more complication. Thoughts and intentions always overlapped with stress and indecisiveness that came off people in waves. If Force signatures were colors, animals and simple creatures would be solid colors while people were more like swirling rainbows.<p>

She gripped her lightsaber and continued deeper into the woods, with no path to guide her she just had to rely on the faint trail of a memory Noma had left on the machines in the workshop. Havock had no idea what the woman had been running from or what she gave her life to protect.

Ayme frowned as her hand reached up to touch the bark of a damaged tree. Most of the trunk had repaired itself with years of growth to heal the wound. The scars were still visible just above Ayme's eyeline.

It looked like the same scratches she had seen in the library in mansion. What ever had been there had also been in these woods at some point. She knew what to look for now and found the same markings on other trees.

The haggard path led her to a collection of craggy rock which created a twenty meter mountain dwarfed by the tall trees. There was a small enclave, not even large enough to be defined as a cave in the face of the stone. Just above the opening the same claw-like scratches along with a large amount of scrapes. She traced the gashes with her index finger until the edge of the rock and her eyes looked down into the cave.

A white stick reached outward just below her. Havock knelt down and moved layers of leaves aside. Bones formed outstretched fingers long forgotten by people but not by time. Ayme looked into the darkened cave and ignited her lightsaber, using the orange light she could see the rest of the skeleton. The remains must have been Noma.

The empty eye sockets stared past the jedi, back onto the forest floor. Ayme's eyes followed the new path in the dirt then shot up as an object that had no place in the forest appeared behind her.

The lightsaber was still lit in her hand as she rose, taking in the scene that was now before her.

A giant mechanical man knelt holding a cube in its long fingers. The metal on his body was old and turned orange from the rust over the years. His eyes were dim and somehow sad, even though she knew the droid had no emotions, or he shouldn't have.

"Why did you come all this way?"

Havock blinked at the clarity of the voice coming from the droid, she desperately wanted to get her hands on him and figure out how he worked.

"I've followed you, since you arrived at the mansion. Nobody comes to the mansion anymore."

She must have been losing her mind, the droid almost sounded remorseful and lonely. It didn't make any sense for a machine to have emotions of any kind, yet this one imitated emotions flawlessly. The thing that sent shivers down the young dark jedi's body was the eery feeling that the droid wasn't imitating anything at all.

"What are you?" Havock kept the orange blade close.

"Protos, that's what he called me." The droid slowly rolled his spine upright until he dwarfed the young woman in his height. He still held the cube in his metal fingers. "You know what this is?"

Ayme lowered the blade completely and extinguished it, but kept the hilt in her hand. "Did you kill her?"

Protos cocked his head to one side. "No, she...I was damaged, not ready yet. I couldn't speak to her and explain. She saw me and ran, I followed her. I wanted to help her, but..." He looked at his hands in disgust. "I couldn't."

He stepped forward, Ayme backpedaled slowly moving in a semi-circle to give him room. His hand came up and traced the same gashes she had earlier. "I wanted to bury her with him, but the rock, I couldn't reach her. My design was flawed in that respect." He looked at Ayme and held the cube out to her. "Here, if you want it all I ask is you help me get her remains out of the rock."

"I thought you were a monster."

Protos cocked his head again. "Doctor Klavan needed an assistant, so he designed me. I can learn things, I could have helped him. He created this, its a replica of my processor. This one can be installed in any machine, even a ship if you so desired."

Ayme could have laughed, the order had sent her here looking for a holocron and she found a droid central processing unit. It was advanced, that was obvious from spending only a few moments with Protos. The forgotten droid had maintained his systems and even made improvements over the fifty years that had passed.

"Deal."

* * *

><p>"So you spent a week on Hadabbanon, and you found droid parts?"<p>

Ayme shook her head as she walked next to Aeos in the corridor leading from the main hanger of the Citadel. "You asked me to investigate, this is what I found." She held the cube in her hand.

Ayme couldn't wait to get to her workshop and see what droid parts she had. Building a droid and seeing if it would be as advanced as Protos would be dominating her attention for the foreseeable future. Figuring out exactly how the processor worked to create a similar design for one of her personal ships brought a thin smile to her face.

"At least you enjoyed yourself."

She laughed. "Oh Zasati, I always enjoy myself."


End file.
